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[Louis Talman]

On May 6, 2010, at 6:51 PM, David Derbes wrote:

> My father, a Creole of New Orleans, often told this joke. A young boy was born to a proud but impoverished Cajun family in Bayou Lafourche. He seemed healthy and happy, but never spoke a word. Finally, at Thanksgiving dinner when he was seven years old, he put down a piece of bread, looked at his family around the table, and announced solemnly: "This bread is burnt." His mother fainted. The family was astonished. A Thanksgiving miracle! "Son," asked his father, "you can speak?!" "Sure, Dad." "Why you don't say nothin' till now?!" The boy looked at his father with a mixture of pity and regret, "Well, Dad, up till now, everything been hokay!"

This story has wide circulation and appears with some variations.  I just read it today in an old (well, not very, but not current, either) article in the Notices of the AMS, told about none other than Albert Einstein!

--Lou Talman
  Department of Mathematical & Computer Sciences
  Metropolitan State College of Denver

  <http://rowdy.mscd.edu/%7Etalmanl>